Murry DePillars was a Chicago artist prominent in the city’s Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and the artist organization AfriCobra. Enrique Chagoya is a California-based artist raised in Mexico City who addresses in both artwork and activism the cultural and political clash between the U.S. and Latin America and U.S. foreign policy. Though to […]
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In Winter 2021 The Block was honored to present Voices Across Time: Sharing Women’s Experiences of Re-entry, a special program bringing together organizers from Beyondmedia Education with current and former members of Grace House, a residential program for women exiting the Illinois prison system. This screening and discussion centered on women’s experiences of re-entry after […]
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Throughout Fall 2020 the Block Museum welcomed online audiences to a special series of shared conversations, focusing on artworks from the collection that explore ideas of justice, race, and equity. [View our Just Mercy Project] These discussion-based lunchtime tours were led by Block staff and inspired by Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and […]
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What is the role of art museums in this moment nationally and globally as we navigate a pandemic, manage economic upheaval, and grapple with racial injustice? How can museums best activate their public platforms, collections, and programs and strengthen community connections to become new spaces for dialogue, reflection, action, and impact that extend beyond their […]
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Consisting of more than 700 artworks, the Abby Weed Grey Collection of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern Art at New York University comprises the largest institutional holdings of Iranian, Turkish and Indian modern art in any American university museum. This unparalleled historical resource was amassed by Abby Weed Grey (1902-1983), a self-described “dyed-in-the-wool Midwesterner” from St. Paul, […]
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On October 30, 2019 the Block hosted an in-depth discussion with Chicago artists Vicko Alvarez Vega, Nicole Marroquin and Diana Solís. Convened and moderated by Sarita Hernández of the National Museum of Mexican Art the panel discussed how their practices are rooted in issues of identity and community, and how ideas and approaches from the exhibition Pop América remain relevant in our contemporary moment
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The Block Museum of Art announces the launch of Caravansofgold.org, a companion site to museum’s 2019 exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa. The exhibition is currently on view at Toronto’s Aga Khan Museum and will travel to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art in 2020. Caravans of […]
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On September 28, 2019 members of Pop Up Youth Radio, a project of Yollocalli Arts Reach, transformed The Block Museum lobby into an on-air studio, broadcasting live from the Pop America 1965-1975 exhibition opening. Wattz Up! is a weekly radio show on WLPN 105.5 FM Lumpen Radio. Broadcast live from Studio Y in Little Village, Chicago on Saturdays from […]
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The ground-breaking exhibition Pop América draws attention to Latin American and US Latino/a artists who turned the “Pop” of Pop art into a verb by using familiar images of modern life—including mass media, fashion, food, and advertising—to make forceful interventions into art and society. On October 2, 2019 The Block Museum welcomed Esther Gabara, curator of Pop América, […]
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The exhibition Pop America, 1965-1975 on view at The Block Museum of Art from September 21, 2019 to December 8, 2019 is is the first exhibition to unify Latin American and Latinx expressions of Pop and explore how artists working across the hemisphere embraced its bold and colorful imagery, references to mass culture, and representations of everyday […]
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